


All the words (I daren't speak)

by Bohemian (Linguam)



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: #SaveShadowhunters, Also #SaveMagnusBane, Angst, M/M, Post-Episode: s03e12 Original Sin, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, albeit fleeting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-13 07:00:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18026981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linguam/pseuds/Bohemian
Summary: When Alec says thatfifty years is a long time, andwhen I’m ninety, so sincere and at ease with the idea of them and a shared, mortal life, Magnus smiles at him, saysI know, saysyou’re right, even though he can’t see himself being here for that.





	All the words (I daren't speak)

**Author's Note:**

> My vow to keep away from the angst certainly didn't last as long as I had expected... I blame the insomnia.
> 
> Most of this was written sometime last year, but I tweaked it a bit so it'd work somewhat with what we've seen so far on the show (and with what we know of Malec as characters).
> 
> Be safe, everyone <3

It’s an ache, Magnus decides. A deep, hollow kind of pain that encompasses everything, similar to blood loss and exhaustion. A tiny piece of every part of him chipped away until his body is nothing but a raw nerve, bloody, ugly, and exposed for everyone to see.

Magnus doesn’t want to touch it. To probe and prod and examine what could be hiding underneath the surface layer of almost suffocating numbness, because if he does, it will rush up, scalding like ice, and he will burn and he will drown, lost and alone in the infinite void of his own wretchedness.

It’s safer not to think about it. To ignore it and push it down and cover it up with too much glitter and slightly smudged eyeliner. It’s still there, a slithering sea creature lurking in that impenetrable abyss, waiting to drag him under and swallow him whole. But it’s easier to pretend.

He feels like his soul is stuck in limbo. Like, maybe, he left it behind in Edom, the real price for freeing Jace and defeating Lilith. He feels undone, un- _whole_ , in such a fundamental way that he finds himself repeatedly questioning if it is possible to keep moving forward like this, in this hollow half-existence – if that is all he will be able to do now, merely exist, and never truly live.

He doesn’t tell Alexander, although he knows that Alec knows, just as Magnus knows that his boyfriend is blaming himself, is drowning in guilt, his sleep just as restless as Magnus’s own. He doesn’t know if he is grateful that Alec lets him pretend ( _for now_ , because he has no illusions there won’t be a conversation at some point, whether he wants one or not), or if the inevitable distance it creates between them only leaves him feeling even more bereft.

Magnus doesn’t tell him not because he wants to keep Alec at arm’s length, but because he doesn’t want to talk about it, doesn’t want to try to give word to what he’s feeling, because that would require him to actually _feel_ , and he can’t. Can’t acknowledge it, doesn’t have the strength for it, not when he is scrambling to keep hold of some sense of who he was, trying to find who he is supposed to be _now_ , when there is a stranger staring back at him every time he looks into the mirror.

He doesn’t tell Alec that, for every day that passes, it gets harder. To pretend, to see a purpose, to see a way out of this falsely cheerful existence he has carved out for himself, this new reality where there is _charm_ to the Mundane way of life, where he can bemoan his uneven eyeliner and throw out casual references to his cat eyes – another piece of him lost – and act like every word doesn’t drag up his throat like broken glass. He hates himself for doing it, but he can’t seem to stop, can’t see a way out, aside from that _permanent_ way that he doesn’t let himself linger on for too long. Saying it out loud, any of it, makes it too real, feels too much like giving up, like giving free reign to the despair he’s trying so hard to keep at bay, and although Magnus thinks that there can’t _possibly_ be anything left of him to break, he isn’t quite there yet.

He doesn’t try to contradict him when Alec tells him, yet again, in that stubbornly endearing way of his, that this is temporary, that they are going to fix it (fix _him_ , is what he’s really saying, a voice whispers in Magnus’s mind, because he is broken and worthless like this, completely useless, a burden, and although no one will say it out loud, he knows it’s what they must all be thinking).

When Alec says that _fifty years is a long time_ , and _when I’m ninety_ , so sincere and at ease with the idea of them and a shared, mortal life, Magnus smiles at him, says _I know_ , says _you’re right_ , even though he can’t see himself being here for that.

Magnus wants to believe him when he says that it will get better, that they will find a way, he really, truly, does, but ultimately, life has always taken more than it has given, and he doesn’t have it in him to dredge up any more hope only to have it snatched away from him the same way his magic was, his immortality, his very essence, pretending that it doesn’t get harder every time to get back up again.

He just can’t do it anymore.


End file.
